Safeguarding

Current Safeguarding Policy

 The purpose of this policy is to protect people, particularly children and at risk adults, from any harm.  This includes harm arising from: 

·       The conduct of staff or personnel associated with The Wilderness Centre

·       Clients and other visitors to The Wilderness Centre

·       Contact with people (including general public) on off-site activities.

What is safeguarding?

In the UK, safeguarding means protecting peoples' health, wellbeing and human rights, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect

In our sector, we understand it to mean protecting people, including children and at risk adults, from harm that arises from coming into contact with our staff  (full-time, part-time, volunteer and freelance) or programmes.

 Scope

 The Wilderness Centre believes that everyone we come into contact with, regardless of age, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation or ethnic origin has the right to be protected from all forms of harm, abuse, neglect and exploitation.  The Wilderness Centre will not tolerate abuse and exploitation by staff or associated personnel.

 This policy will address the following areas of safeguarding:  child safeguarding, adult safeguarding, and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse. 

 The Wilderness Centre commits to addressing safeguarding throughout its work, through the three pillars of prevention, reporting and response.

 Prevention

 The Wilderness Centre will:

·       Ensure all staff have access to, are familiar with, and know their responsibilities within this policy

·       Design and undertake all its programmes and activities in a way that protects people from any risk of harm that may arise from their coming into contact with The Wilderness Centre. This includes the way in which information about individuals in our programmes is gathered and communicated

·       Implement stringent safeguarding procedures when recruiting, managing and deploying staff and associated personnel 

·       Ensure staff receive training on safeguarding at a level commensurate with their role at the Centre

·       Follow up on reports of safeguarding concerns promptly and according to due process

Staff Responsibilities

Child safeguarding

The Wilderness Centre staff and associated personnel must not:

·       Engage in sexual activity with anyone under the age of 18 

·       Sexually abuse or exploit children 

·       Subject a child to physical, emotional or psychological abuse, or neglect 

·       Engage in any commercially exploitative activities with children including child labour or trafficking 

 Adult safeguarding

The Wilderness Centre staff and associated personnel must not:

·       Sexually abuse or exploit at risk adults

·       Subject an at risk adult to physical, emotional or psychological abuse, or neglect 

 Protection from sexual exploitation and abuse

The Wilderness Centre staff and associated personnel must not:

·       Exchange money, employment, goods or services for sexual activity. This includes any exchange of assistance that is due to beneficiaries of assistance

·       Engage in any sexual relationships with beneficiaries of assistance, since they are based on inherently unequal power dynamics

 Additionally, The Wilderness Centre staff and associated personnel are obliged to:

·       Contribute to creating and maintaining an environment that prevents safeguarding violations and promotes the implementation of the Safeguarding Policy

·       Report any concerns or suspicions regarding safeguarding violations by a staff member, associated personnel, clients or visitors to the Head of Centre (who is Safeguarding Lead)

 Reporting a concern

 Staff members who have a complaint or concern relating to safeguarding should report it immediately to the Head of Centre.  If the staff member does not feel comfortable reporting to the Head of Centre (for example if they feel that the report will not be taken seriously, or if that the Head of Centre is implicated in the concern) they may report to any other appropriate staff member (Operations Manager, Estate Manager, Housekeeping Team, Owner).